


sunrise in the city

by antematter



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Medical, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, F/M, Redemption, Rey Needs A Hug, Soft Ben Solo, coming home, this is super soft
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-13
Updated: 2018-12-13
Packaged: 2019-09-17 11:16:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16973592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antematter/pseuds/antematter
Summary: December brings Kylo Ren home to face his ghosts.





	sunrise in the city

December brings Kylo back home when November, October, and September hadn’t been able to. His feet are weary and he’s bone-tired of the rainy snow that never seems to stop falling from the sky. The cold creeps through the cracks in the pavement, through the gaps under the doors, and somehow seems to settle in the lines around his mouth.

There’s nothing left for him in the city with its glaring streetlights and endlessly flashing neon signs; nothing left in his apartment but empty whiskey glasses and a cleaner who just wants to be home with her children for Christmas.

 _Come_ _home_ , his mother had said over the phone, some months ago, when Kylo had finally called her to tell her he’d quit. She’d known already, of course, known about the collapse of the surgical department Dr. Snoke had built on the ashes of Kylo’s old life. But he hadn’t spoken to her for years and he hadn’t known how. _Come_ _home_ , _Ben_. _We_ _miss_ _you_. The _we_ _love_ _you_ went unspoken. After all these years they’d still not worked out how to say it.

He hadn’t been able to do it then.

The flight had been short though, and the roads are familiar as the taxi driver weaves his way through the traffic. The snow is still falling, but thicker and heavier than in the city. And the house at the end of the street is still lit with warm lights and little fairy lights dotting the verandah look exactly how he remembers it.

Kylo’s chest tightens. His teeth hurt somehow, and whether it’s from the cold or the loss, he just can’t say.

His feet have carried him to the door. Glancing over his shoulder awkwardly as he knocks, he realises, for the first time, that there are cars lining the street. And the voices that rise from inside are surely too loud for a gathering of merely three.

It’s too late now though, as he hears his mother’s voice rise through the fray. Her footsteps are sure as she opens the door. “-must be here!” she calls behind her. Then she sees him. _Oh_.

She looks old, he thinks. Grey threads have woven through her hair and settled in her buns. A spider web of wrinkles ghost her forehead. But she is still in that old red apron and the oven mitten she is holding is the one he gave her for Christmas all those years ago and it only takes a second for her to envelope him in a hug. “Ben...” she breathes, and he’s not sure she’s not crying. He’s not sure he isn’t either.

Leia smells like cookies and vanilla and home and he’s definitely crying now. “Hi mum,” he says into her shoulder. She releases him. “Everyone’s here,” she says, business-like suddenly. “I wish I’d known you were coming. I would have...” she trails off, beckoning him to follow her.

Would have what? he thinks. Not invited everyone? Told him not to have come? He brushes away these doubts - uncharitable, he tells himself, uncharitable and falling back into old habits.

The dimly lit corridor gives way to the living area, warmly lit by a fire and a thousand flickering lights. The room is crowded with familiar faces and people spill out into neighbouring rooms, jovial and noisy. But the living room falls still when they enter. Kylo clears his throat into the silence. Someone coughs awkwardly. The music continues to play.

Han is sitting on the couch, his arm stretched relaxedly over the back of the seat when he sees Kylo. He’s grown a new beard and his hair is shockingly white. “Ben!” His father’s expression doesn’t freeze the way everyone else’s has. It’s like he’s been waiting for a long time for him. “I wasn’t expecting you.” He reaches in for an awkward half-hug, half-handshake, but Kylo takes it in both his hands anyway.

“Could say the same about you,” he says, but his words have no bite.

Han laughs. “Ah well,” he replies easily. “You know me - this one calls and I come running.” He gestures fondly towards Leia, and despite the years of marriage and the years of divorce, it’s always been true.

“Have something to eat,” Leia says. Her eyes are still soft. “We’re just having a bit of a Christmas party. You’ll have to catch up with everyone.”

It’s a cue that everyone takes to stop staring. Faces turn away, but some approach him as he picks up a plate and starts to awkwardly fill it. Christmas pudding, a bit of ham, some jelly ... the combinations are haphazard as Kylo struggles to remember the words that might make him belong again.

“I see you’re back,” Maz’s tone is disapproving, but his godmother’s touch is almost affectionate as she pinches his belly with her spidery fingers. “Don’t they feed you up in that big city - you’re just a bag of bones!”

Kylo feels like a bag of bones, rattling around in his apartment the last few months, but as he looks up at Chewie’s grumble and cuff around the neck, he feels almost a little lighter. The older man nods at him gruffly as he hustles his wife away.

“You’d better come visit me soon, Benjamin!” Maz isn’t done yet, though she’s already being bundled halfway to the other side of the room. “I need some help with the firewood and this husband of mine is suffering from crippling decrepitude!”

Kylo smiles, a hand raised almost to hide it.

“Hey man,” Poe brushes past him on his way to the punch bowl. “Good to see you back.” His childhood friend hasn’t much more to say on the subject of Kylo’s return, but he does have a lot to say about the recent football match, and it’s a nice normal conversation that Kylo’s familiar with, that he can fall into.

It’s at least half an hour that passes uneventfully. Kylo feels his mother’s eyes on him, and occasionally she’ll move a little closer as if to reassure herself that he’s still there. He catches her gaze sometimes, but she’ll smile in a way that reassures him that they’ve still got time, that they can talk when everyone else is gone, that, for once, he’s not too late. She’s moving out of the room and he’s watching her when he sees the one person who hasn’t crossed the floor to say hello. Finn. He looks at him expressionlessly from where he’s been texting furiously on his phone. Kylo opens his mouth, though he’s not sure what will come out. Finn looks exactly the same - the last person he saw before he left, that exact expression on his face.

“Oh,” Poe says, following his gaze. “I wonder when Finn got here.”

Kylo wonders too, because he knows that wherever Finn goes, she has to be near, and he wasn’t expecting this, wasn’t expecting the house to be anything but devoid of anyone but his mother, but life goes on without him, and how foolish of him to think that his family would be alone on Christmas Eve, and how ridiculous to think that just because he left her that his family would leave her too.

Poe is watching him now too, a surprisingly sympathetic expression on his face. He curls his hand into a fist and punches Kylo gently. “Breathe,” he says, but Kylo can’t.

He can’t because the door has flown open and a whirlwind of energy has rushed into the room, half-melted snow and a bouncing mongrel in her wake. “I’m so sorry I’m late,” Rey exclaims, dropping a kiss on Han’s cheek. “I got caught in the snowstorm and then my phone died and, oh hello there Beebee -“ she bends over to greet the dog, lavishing pats on his scruffy face. Standing up to give Finn a hug, she hasn’t seen Kylo yet. “Work was crazy - you should have seen the drunk people in the emergency department and it’s not even Christmas Day yet; thank god I’m not on shift tomorrow - I swear I had to put ten stitches in this guy’s face because the intern nearly fainted at the sight of all the blood.” She pauses to take a breath, and Kylo has to remember to breathe with her. “Anyway, good luck working your shift tomorrow, Finn - I don’t envy you at all. God I’m starving though - don’t tell me you’ve eaten all the food.”

She half turns towards the food, but Finn stops her with a hand on her shoulder. His voice is quiet but it carries across the living room, probably because Kylo is so intent on their conversation. “Peanut, wait. I texted you, but never mind -“ he breaks off, shakes his head, “he’s back, Rey. I wanted you to know before you got here, but he just got back.”

Kylo can imagine the confusion in her upturned face though he can only see the back of her shiny dark hair, pulled back into three painfully familiar buns. He can definitely hear it in her voice when she says, “who, Finn? What are you talking about?”

Finn’s reply is lost in her frantic swivel as she turns to seek him out across the living room. Kylo’s breath catches in his throat as he sees her face for the first time in years. His heart is beating in his chest like a live thing.

She is _luminescent_. The firelight flickers golden off her hair and reflects in her large, startled eyes. There is a rosy flush high on her cheeks from the cold and the shock. Pink lips, slightly parted, widen further, and her tongue peeks out to lick them.

He realises his hands are shaking. He puts them down, firm against his pants. Somehow he is on his feet, Poe looking between the two of them warily.

There is a moment, he thinks, where anything or nothing could be said. But then, impossibly, she blinks hard, two or three times, and then, face impassive, she turns away. There is a roaring in his ears and he can’t hear what she says to Finn, but the two of them walk out of the room. His hand is on the small of her back, and she determinedly does not look back. He didn’t look back either, Kylo remembers. He didn’t look back when he left her.

“God,” Poe says. “That was intense.”

“Yeah,” says Kylo.

“I forgot you guys used to date before you fucked off.”

“Yeah,” he repeats, almost to himself. “I was going to marry her.”

 

•••

 

The next morning dawns brighter than warranted, he thinks. Kylo sits at his mother’s kitchen bench, hunched over himself. His mother is bustling around the kitchen, cooking pancakes of all things. Humming to herself, she reaches across and refills his glass with more juice.

“You really don’t have to do this, Mum,” he says again.

“I know,” she says. “But my boy is home.”

Is he? He doesn’t feel at ease. He feels like his limbs are too big for this house, that he can’t arrange them in his chair comfortably, that somehow he’s grown or the house has shrunk.

“I’m really glad you’re home, Ben.”

Kylo swallows. “I’m - I’m really sorry, Mum. I fucked everything up.” He means it, though the words stick in his throat. He’s sorry the way he left them, storming out mid-fight and never looked back. He’s sorry that they were right about Dr. Snoke and the surgical fellowship that devoured his life and his soul, and for what. All he has left now is an incomplete fellowship and a boss that will never practise medicine again, thanks to him.

“Don’t be silly,” Leia interrupts his thoughts. Her voice is firm, but calm, and he can see why her patients love her. “You did the right thing in the end, Ben. You don’t have to get it right the first time, all the time.”

“I wanted to explain,” he tries, but once again, she cuts him off.

“You don’t have to, Ben. I read about it in the papers. I know you reported him to the medical board. You don’t have to explain yourself to me. What you have to do is decide what you want to do now.” Her eyes are soft. “And who you want to be. Now, eat your damned pancakes.” She pushes the plate towards him.

He looks down and laughs. She’s drawn a bloody smiley on his pancake in maple syrup. It says _I_ _love_ _you_ more than they’ve ever been able to. Maybe she’s been sending him messages like this all his life. He reaches for her hand, still outstretched on the kitchen countertop. Leia startles as their hands touch but then she smiles and turns her palm over so they’re palm to palm. He squeezes lightly. The moment stretches.

A noise from the hallway startles him and he lets go. His father stomps in, clad only in a pair of pyjama pants, slung low over his hips.

“Oh good lord,” Kylo says, covering his eyes. “I’m out of here.” He shovels the pancake into his mouth.

His parents’ laughter follow him out the door.

 

•••

 

His feet bring him to the cafe across the road from the hospital. His old haunt. He certainly feels like a ghost, standing in the back of the cafe at the edge of the crowd as he waits to order.

There are a few familiar faces, but no one looks at him more than passingly, and he keeps his head down.

“Double espresso,” he mutters when he gets to the counter, still unwilling to make eye contact.

“Name?” The cheery barista waits, pen poised over the cup.

“Ben,” he says, the name escaping from behind his pressed teeth like water through cupped hands. It feels like a release.

“Won’t be a moment.”

He moves away to wait for his order. Christmas carols are playing softly and he finds they don’t irritate him as much as usual. The bell jingles as another customer walks in.

“What can I get you?”

“Mocha, please,” her voice is slightly hoarse.

He looks up, despite himself. Rey is wrapped in so many layers that he’s surprised she made it through the door. _Grew_ _up_ _in_ _a_ _desert_ , she used to tell him. _M’not_ _used_ _to_ _all_ _this_ _cold_. And she hadn’t been. If she hadn’t worn ten thousand layers, she’d catch cold after cold. Her nose would be running all winter. _It’s_ _just_ _allergies_ , she would grumble at him, unwilling to admit that something as simple the cold would floor her. But she’d curl into him at night anyway, his body a furnace and her feet blocks of ice. He’d grumble right back but he’d pull her closer into the curve of his body, and he’d feel her smile into his arm.

At the beginning anyway.

Then his shifts would stretch longer and longer and he’d come home more and more tired. His back would be stiff from being retractor bitch, and his irritation would be high from being yelled at to suck at the surgical field, or to stop obscuring it, often both at the same time. _How can you think you’re good enough to be a surgeon, how come you can’t close up faster, don’t tell me you’re going to stitch your glove to the patient’s skin_ would echo in his ear, long after he’d leave the hospital and more often than not he’d get out of bed to research yet another journal article that would surely earn him some approval.

He wouldn’t notice when Rey started using more and more tissues, or when she started wearing thick socks and gloves to bed, or when she started taking more shifts in the emergency department. Sometimes he wouldn’t come home at all, choosing instead to sleep in the on call room in case a good case came in so he could prove himself.

 _Your girl’s been here a lot_ , Hux had mentioned once.

He’d grunted in reply, because Snoke had just told him he had decided to stop splitting his time between this quaint little country hospital and return to his practice in the city.

 _Mmm,_ Hux had continued, oblivious to Kylo’s distraction. _She called me in for that appendicectomy the other night, and the burst gallbladder the night before. I swear she’s had a patient with an acute abdomen every night this week._ He grins _,_ too many teeth on display _. Cute though. Mind if I take a run at her after you and Snoke leave?_

Kylo’s face had frozen, lip curled, fists clenched. Hux had laughed. _Maybe I’ll ask again in a few months._

He hadn’t been the one to tell her he was leaving.

“Ben?” The barista breaks him out of his reverie. She is holding out his coffee. Rey twists around, sees him. A long-suffering sigh. The look in her eyes suggests that she is going to flee again, like she did last night. His heart clenches. He holds up his hand in a placating gesture. She is a wild animal that he can’t afford to scare away.

“Don’t,” he says lowly. “I’m - I’ll just go.” He picks up his coffee and walks away. Pushes the door open. The cold is a relief.

It takes a couple of minutes before he realises she is following him. Her scarf is flying in the wind and she is clutching her coffee cup like a lifeline.

“That’s not fair,” she says quietly. She stares straight ahead, barely acknowledging him. “You don’t get to leave again. I’m the one that gets to leave now.”

He stops, stares. There is a dropping feeling in his gut. “I ...” He’s not sure what he’s going to say.

Rey looks at him for a long moment. It takes him a while to realise that it’s not anger written on her face. It’s hurt. “Thank you,” she says. She turns to walk away.

“Wait.” The words blurt out before he realises what he’s doing. His hand closes around her wrist, and she stops, alarmed. There’s fear there now. Some ghosts never fade. He releases her wrist at once. “I ... I’m so sorry, Rey. I never meant to hurt you.”

He hadn’t. He was stupid and selfish, and he didn’t realise what he was doing, didn’t realise what he was throwing away, and god he’d missed her. It’s only now, looking at her with all those years between them that Ben feels the magnitude of all he left behind.

His face is damp. He thinks he might be crying.

“Well.” There’s no bitterness in her voice, just an endless weariness. “At least there’s that.”

**Author's Note:**

> God, I haven’t written fic in so long. This was supposed to be a fluffy Christmas oneshot because I am Christmas fic trash, but apparently I have more Kylo Ren redemption feelings than I thought. Thanks for reading! The next part/resolution should be up soon if this doesn’t get away from me again. :)


End file.
